Randillusion

Dates of Entries

As social commentary goes; we get to stand on a podium and shout out our disgust–so for a new low–I have to discuss a new reality series that makes one want to hurl chunks, perhaps from past athletica bolemia battles or present alcoholic overdoses, but more than likely over the new generational loss of self esteem. And I am not a proponent of the “self esteem” propaganda that brought North American academic scores to a new low back in the 80s and 90s–that, was just bad schooling practices.

I’m talking about the self esteem one should have in the early flower of youth when one can look in the mirror and see some sort of benefit to being who you are–as nature created you.

This new television series, called Bridalplasty, is not only distasteful to watch as each new episode’s winner gets to undergo some unnecessary elective surgery–they get to lay back and heal from their surgical wounds–while gossiping about the character of each of the girls who become “bottom brides,” because of contests of taste, fashion or style. C’mon, girls, why don’t you get on your bikes and ride? Freddie Mercury, of Queen, c’mon you can remember–the little bisexual fellow with the big voice? Even the showman of the ages might laugh at the ludicrous lengths these girls, many of whom are absolutely gorgeous just the way nature made them, will go to acquire the “perfect wedding day.” Poor Freddie didn’t care about his overbite–he just let the show go on.

Even the hostess tells the eliminated bride of each succeeding episode that “she will not have the perfect wedding–tho’ her wedding day will come.” That final farewell might be enough for one of these girls to jump off a bridge and not into matrimony. From Wikipedia we read, “A 2007 Swedish and US longitudinal study found that women who get cosmetic breast implants are nearly three times as likely to commit suicide as other women. No notable increase was seen in the first 10 years after surgery, but 10 to 19 years after, risk was 4.5 times higher, and six times higher after 20 years, compared with the expected suicide rate.”

Is it not enough that we have to watch these easy to produce, cheap replacements to good story writing, television series without having to watch young brides-to-be battle it out for the most surgery in these social Darwinistic showdowns? Survivor, Biggest Loser, American Idol and all of the rest of these “survival of the fittest” serials are not helping our society.

It has become a dog-eat-dog world on “reality” television and now it’s biyatch on biyatch bride in a pursuit of percieved perfection? Someone needs to counsel these poor girls about the droopy paths that overblown, plastic breasts will take as they reach into poverty and can’t get back on some game show for the reconstructive surgery after a few years pass them by.

Honestly, body sculpting, shaping and improvement can occur with a little hard work in a gym, on a hiking path or in a pool. Get some shape by working out instead of requiring some high-paid surgeon who has no interest in saving lives, but rather in making a mighty dollar quicker.

The other night I plopped my butt into bed and watched John Stewart on the Daily Show. I watched as a video of one of his media cohorts, or opponents, it depends how you look at television comedians, cropped up on-screen and starting discussing a new epiphany he has only recently received…though, perhaps he’s been obsessing about this one for a long time. Apparently Glenn Beck, the ultra-conservative right wing pundnut has leaped over the edge of reality and decided that God is “speaking” to him.

Now you can see how much fun I’m going to have with this, don’t you?

It brings back memories from another decade when a televangelist named Oral Roberts was perched in his tower of solitude and God was telling him that his followers must send 8 million dollars, or some ludicrous amount, to his ministry or God was going to take his life. Don’t you just love this stuff? Suicide notes with an agenda. Pray and pay for my life…or it’s all over…help me to help you…send $$$$$$$ NOW!

This kind of stuff just writes itself, doesn’t it?

Well, Glenn (the extra “n” stands for nuts) is writing a new book with a plan…a plan from God. God hasn’t revealed the plan yet but over time, Beck reports, he will be receiving from its godly author a revelation of action to help America to “refound” itself. Yes, America has been lost and must be refound. Beck will be one of the “refounding” fathers. Anyone smell delusional in this? Are we so swept up in ourselves that we have to remake the country in our own interpretive image…of course, only through the wisdom of the Creator…He is talking to Glenn, isn’t He, or is Glenn just joking?

The sad truth of Beck is revealed by the lengths he will go to increase his annual salary of $23 million. The man has more energy than the Energizer Bunny, but must he take it out of the pockets of struggling Americans through fear, conspiracy and God dialogues?

Glenn Beck is two years younger than I am…and many millions richer…but when a media personality starts spewing God talk I get very worried. For me, it happened a long time ago in an American cult and we were told that we “would be God as God is God.” I didn’t like it in my twenty-somethings, I don’t like it now, and I hate the formula that Beck is using…even if he thinks its humor. Typical, everyday Americans are biting on this bait and there will be hell to pay, in a very real way, for all of Glenn Beck’s followers.

When someone starts calling himself chosen by God…run away…fast. He’s gonna burn the virgins, crucify the country and laugh all the way to the bank. That’s the sad truth…and God didn’t tell me that…figured it out all by myself. The sad part of that is it took years to realize the cult I was a part of was more heretical than epiphanical. Hope Beck figures it out.

For any of you not able to read the words of my cartoon cubes? Move your cursor atop the cartoon…and left click on your mouse. The cartoon should double in size and you will be able to see exactly what the cartoon is saying…or not saying.

Aren’t we all like books? Sometimes we are open and easy to read, while on other occasions we are closed, focussed and simply unavailable to pass on information.

People are like books. We can read each other very easily when we’re happy. The sentences flow from our eyes and lips. The exclamation point of a toothy grin is passing on information that is fulfilling to the reader. We might smile and open up when we see a happy human.

I think the real pleasure in realizing that we are very much like a piece of literature is that we can change. We can be open and easy to read for a long period of time, or we can be up on a shelf unread for decades. We can be open, then closed, open and closed again several times during a single day. It all depends.

Some books are just not read-worthy. You know how that goes. You start a book and then put it down never to pick it up again. It doesn’t appeal to you and it never will. For each of us, we’ve met people like that. Maybe we are people like that?

Now, speaking of books, I mentioned early on in this blog that I’d be doing some book reviews…well, here are a few.

James Michener’s The Fires of Spring is his second novel written in 1949. The novel shows us how timeless valuable literature with rich sentences and eternal truths can be. The story of David Harper growing up in the poorhouse under the tutelage of some aged, poverty-stricken, yet rich in characters, elderly men and women while under the guardianship of his tight-fisted aunt is an absolutely astounding picture of growing up in America.

The romantic, coming-of-age story of this young man trying to discover his artistry, his true love and himself is done in such a manner that personally I think Michener made this story more autobiographical than we as the audience were intended to know. The hero of our story grows up in a town with the same name as Michener’s own birthplace. The Fires of Spring is a great read with marvelous history lessons, vocabulary and one never really knows what’s going to happen to David Harper till the end of the wonderful early work of one of my favorite authors.

Carole Shields’ The Stone Diaries was released in 1993 and is the only book to win both a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1995 and the 1993 Governor General’s Award. The fictional tale of Daisy Goodwill Flett is astoundingly beautiful in epic manner of storytelling. Shields used “flowery” phrasing and poetic sentences to write about this typical woman who loved creative gardening. The story is set throughout the midwestern provinces and states of America ending in a Florida retirement home, but it is a must read for any aspiring author or amateur writer.

Alan Jacobs’ The Narnian is an incredible tale of perhaps this past century’s greatest, and most controversial, intellectual writer by the name of C. S. Lewis. Jacobs tells a very insightful story of a man who enjoyed his own company. Lewis’ friendship with J. R. R. Tolkien, his ultimate conversion into a Christian faith, his strange late lifestyle, his unique upbringing are all analyzed in this most recent biography. Incidently, JFK, C. S. Lewis and Aldous Huxley all died on the same day…it truly was the end of Camelot. With the assassination of JFK, you can imagine how little press the passing of both Lewis and famous author Huxley drew. Kinda like Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson?

Hope you have enjoyed my little turn into the realm of the literary and may your book always be open.

It has never ceased to amaze me when citizens of America complain about socialist nations. “We Capitalists brought down the Soviet Union…the greatest socialistic demagogue in history.”

This statement is simply untrue. The Soviet Union collapsed from within through bad management, bad production, poor communication (that is too much secrecy between government and the people), small wars, apathy and a weak ruble. Yes, the competitions of the arms and space races with the United States were part of the puzzle, but isn’t America suffering from bad management during the course of the last 2 decades? How about the present strength of the dollar? Is America in an expensive small war(s)? Aren’t those who don’t learn from the past doomed to repeat catastrophic events? Hmmm, let’s think about that?

America has firemen, policemen, social security, labor unions, welfare and medicare. Are not each and every one of these organizations part of a socialized scheme…ummm, a very real capitalistic socialism?

In the excerpt below an analyst is quoted after the fall of the Soviet Union.

“What has been learned? Perhaps the best analysis is that of Joe Slovo, writing from the standpoint of the South African Communist Party which played a leading role in the revolutionary victory over apartheid. In his famous 1989 article, Slovo argues that socialism itself has not failed, but that it must develop a real democracy, including for “all citizens the basic rights and freedoms of organisation, speech, thought, press, movement, residence, conscience and religion; full trade union rights for all workers including the right to strike, and one person one vote in free and democratic elections.” To this list one needs to add the free flow of honest information. These are all basic principles of a culture of peace and are incompatible with a culture of war.”

These are socialist writers analyzing the collapse of socialism. Are the answers to curing the ills of the Soviet failures not the same answers for curing the soon-coming and present ills of American capitalism? The Soviets built an industrial military complex that couldn’t sustain itself. Does the United States of America not have an industrial military structure that can no longer be sustained by the American taxpayer? NASA is becoming more privatized in this decade. The military budget of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan…1.05 Trillion dollars…go to http://www.nationalpriorities.org/costofwar_home to see these numbers rising.

Last night I watched an Arizonan senator accuse a U. S. president of having “divided loyalties” because the senator didn’t believe that Barak Obama was born in Hawaii. The senator claimed he couldn’t believe anything that he saw through the worldwide web, ergo…Barak Obama is from Kenya.

What the hell is that?

Stupid, on top of blind…added to dumb with dumberer? Weren’t the credentials of the world’s “most powerful man on the planet” checked out before he even began to run for the highest office in the land? I think so. What point am I trying to make here? Now we’re seeing poor communication between government and the people in America. I could go on…but I won’t.

So with a rising national debt, poor communication, a shrinking dollar, mismanagement of governmental representatives (oathed to office to do “for the people”) and poor production/services becoming ever more prevalent in America’s present reality are we about to see a collapse of capitalism that will certainly be as dramatic, if not more so, as the Soviet Union’s collapse…and for the same reasons? You can answer that and vocalize your opinions.

Recently New Yorker editor David Remnick wrote a biography of America’s not white enough…not black enough president, Barak Obama. The book is entitled The Bridge. I would offer up a hope that America’s present leader can bridge the apparent gap of polar extremes between the left-wing Democrats and right-wing Republicans. America’s push for success must start first with a culture of peace requiring that each side move to the center of the cube and start pushing towards a direction that they both can agree upon.